


Out in the Open

by love2imagine



Series: Out of this World [7]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Thanks to Third Marauder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 01:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1838794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth insists there's some thing wrong and demands to know what...Neal reluctantly complies. Is this a relationship-ending quarrel?...Don't read if you love the whole El-Peter-Neal dynamic (don't we all) and believe it was intact and beeootiful at the end of Season 5. Spoilers for bits of all seasons.</p><p>I had to write this, the series just swept it all under the rug once too often. I can't believe they have any future without airing this.</p><p>Need to know canon, but don't need to be up on the series if you can just bleep over the odd reference to the past after Season 5!</p><p>And Third Marauder, I keep referring to Tanner, but don't write such delicious characters if you don't want them to become immortal!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out in the Open

**Author's Note:**

> White Collar characters belong to Jeff Eastin, not me. We like to borrow them, just for fun.

 

 

Neal had showered…it was late and he’d finished all the paintings commissioned from France and Italy, three large canvasses that eventually Mozzie or El’s people would package up beautifully and send off with a hand-written note from himself, which he would write later. In French and Italian. Fun! He enjoyed communicating with some of these truly good, appreciative people.

 

He felt pleasantly tired and ready to fall into bed early for once, and then take some time off…perhaps ask June on a picnic! Take her dancing! Feel like Neal Caffrey again, carefree trickster! After all, if a conman couldn’t fool himself, he was in **_big trouble!_**

 

He dressed in his favourite silk sleeping pants…if he dreamed at all, and he wasn’t much of a (sleep) dreamer…it tended to be in these, and they were always good dreams. He was musing over how different a day felt if preceded by a happy dream, checking on the last little things, and there was a knock on the door. Neal groaned.

 

He wondered if he could just ignore it. It wasn’t Mozzie’s complicated, **_this is a code and you have to break it before I’ll let you let me in_** knock. It wasn’t June’s soft, confident, gentile knock.

 

It wasn’t likely to be Peter…he’d been withdrawn with Peter after Peter had asked Steel to intervene in his son’s illegal activities.

 

He remembered when Peter often used to act as though there was not only no lock, but no latch on the door either, throwing it open as though expecting Caffrey to be caught in the middle of some scam with all ten of the FBI’s most wanted gathered round in black shirts and white ties, violin cases all around, blue-prints to Fort Knox spread out on the table…and the door unlocked! It had amused him, at first.

 

He’d almost _always_ left the door unlocked, in those days, and placed a cushion behind the door if he thought there was much chance of a visit, because he figured if Peter was going to burst in unannounced anyway, it would be a pity if he damaged June’s house in the process. Now it was his apartment, and there were two secure locks and (compliments of Moz) hidden security cameras.

 

As he walked quickly to his room to look under the cover at the tiny, black and white, very old cathode-ray tube screen, he considered again that it was a blessing to some child that Peter hadn’t been a father…he’d have burst in on a teenager’s room with just as little warning, and just as little tact or sensitivity.

 

Peering at the blurry image, Neal groaned again…it _was_ Peter and Elizabeth. And they’d know he was likely to be here, and they may go and bother June and ask her!

 

Neal went to the door, clicked back the heavy locks and opened it a sliver. “Oh!” he feigned surprise…they weren’t to know about the screen hidden in the cupboard in his room. “I’m sorry, guys, I was about to fall into bed.”

 

Elizabeth looked apologetic, but determined. Peter looked confused – or something. Neal often found Peter’s more emotional expressions hard to fathom. They either looked like anger or this bemused look. But it was Elizabeth leading the charge tonight. She said, quietly, “Neal, we’d really like to come in. There’s something going on and I don’t like it.”

 

Neal looked into her blue eyes and sighed. She was a good manager, she took a load off his shoulders and dealt politely with people he’d hate to even talk to! She was invaluable as long as he was doing this copying-stuff! He didn’t want to alienate her, but he didn’t like the fact that she was using that to push her way into his room…okay, that was the tiredness talking, but it felt like that! His lovely early dream-sleep, stolen from him!

 

“Wait a minute, let me put on something.” He wasn’t being particularly polite. But he remembered Steel’s wishes and realised that this was going to be the time he’d have to comply with them.

 

He opened the door wearing the pants, but with a robe over them. He went and sat down and waved them to the other chairs, tying the sash.

 

“Gosh, Neal, you must be tired,” Peter hesitated. “I’ve never seen you this…casual? Not-on?”

 

“Not Neal Caffrey, don’t have to charm anyone, learning to be Ellington-Steel. And very, very tired.”

 

“I’m sorry, Neal, but something is so tainted!” El said. “I don’t like what’s happening between us. It wasn’t wonderful part of the time at Steel’s, then I thought it was fixed, but it seems it’s deteriorating since you came back. We get together, and it’s super-casual. I don’t know. You’re a little more distant every time.”

 

“What’s wrong, Elizabeth? Have I been treating you badly? You don’t have to manage my work, you know. Mozzie will do it if I ask.”

 

“Mozzie has the attention span of…” Peter hesitated.

 

“Of a Neal Caffrey doomed to weeks of mortgage-fraud cold-cases, yes, I’ve heard it,” Neal said, unresponsively. His gut clenched. This was it, the confrontation he’d been avoiding, dreading. It was like seeing a Mack truck barrelling down on him and being unable to move a muscle. “Look, guys, I’m really tired…please go. Seriously, please! **_Please!”_**

 

Elizabeth looked back and forth between them. “Guys, this has got to stop. I was trying to be diplomatic, being part of this, but really it is between the two of you. Now what is going on! You saved each other’s asses over and over…I was jealous of what you had!”

 

Neal shrugged. “We worked well together. We needed each other.”

 

“There you are!” Elizabeth pointed out.

 

“I needed Peter to stay out of prison, he needed me to close cases,” Neal nodded, wondering how long they were going to stay. How could he create a distraction? He could perhaps ‘call’ Mozzie and get him to somehow call Peter’s cell-phone – **_damn! No cell phones!_**

****

_And the confrontation would just be delayed. Peter might be like a pit-bull chasing criminals and collecting evidence. Elizabeth is worse when it comes to relationships. Might as well get it over with._

 

 “It was more than that, Neal, and you know it.”

 

“What does **_Peter_** know?” Neal demanded. Now that it was upon him, he felt the anger start to build. _Self-protection!_ That wasn’t the way to handle this. Steel wouldn’t get angry. Steel would be calm. Steel would be assertive. _Why couldn’t Steel handle this!_

 

Peter swallowed. “I know it was that, for you, at first…you wanted to get out and find Kate. But – but we were good together. We bounced ideas off each other. It was fun!”

 

“Yes, we worked well together,” Neal nodded. “I said that.”

 

“It wasn’t working well together when I saved you from being caught by Kramer. It wasn’t just work when I helped you when you were wanted for that pink diamond, it wasn’t just work when you shot Keller to save me…when you gave up the treasure for me and El!” Peter said, desperately. “Look, I suspected you had the treasure, but you could have just stood there and said, ‘What the hell are you talking about? I don’t have the treasure! This guy is a nut job!’ – which was true enough! - and Elizabeth might have died. You and Moz would have been made, even if you had to wait out your sentence. I had no proof.”

 

“Elizabeth saved herself. She didn’t need me and Moz to give up our future,” Neal said.

 

“We kept Keller busy, gave her time…”

 

“Remember how you were with that, Peter? You expected everyone, FBI, me, Moz, every policeman and pretty well every New Yorker to give up everything to help you get Elizabeth back. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I understand it completely. That’s how I felt about Kate.”

 

The room hummed with sudden, sullen silence. Peter opened his mouth, carefully shut it again. Elizabeth looked bereft.

 

“Let me say it for you, Peter,” Neal went on, his voice hard, part of him wanting to run his mouth in anger, the other trying to rein it in, “I’ve memorised most of your sermons…not difficult, I’ve heard them all often, and I’m not stupid. This one goes…” he deepened his voice and gave it a condescending twist, “ ‘ ** _That_ ** was **_different_**. I’m an FBI Special Agent, El’s my wife. You and Kate were both **_criminals.’_** ”

 

The silence swallowed the room again. Peter looked down. Then he said, sadly, “I thought you were just a romantic dreamer and that she was leading you on, Neal. I didn’t like Kate, I didn’t trust Kate, and I could just see misery because she’d get you to cut the anklet and go.”

 

“And make myself a fugitive on the run…an identity I’d lived with for years. So no real change for me. But your name would be mud and you wouldn’t have your crime-solving leashed criminal informant.”

 

“Ouch, Neal!” Elizabeth winced. “Peter’s never been that selfish!”

 

“Our partnership was always one-sided, Elizabeth.” Neal tried taking a deep, calming breath. _Not helping much! I still care, that’s the problem, but I’m afraid of both of them…_

 

“How, Neal, give me a concrete example, not Kate – that was so long ago.”

 

“Please just **_go!_** Please! Do you seriously want to drag this all out in the open?”

 

“I have to know what’s gone wrong, Neal.”

 

“Don’t blame me, then.

“Well, I did say I’d never lie to Peter, but I think I’ll go on record as amending that, since Peter lied to me.”

 

“Did you, Hon?” El asked, disappointed. “That’s not fair.”

 

“I – I was trying to get a confession. That’s what LEO’s do. It’s all legal.”

 

“That was only **_one_** time. When I was working for that politician, you lied to me then, too, and denied it. Probably many more…you certainly kept secrets and played me easily as often as I played you. So you think it’s okay for criminals to have to tell the truth, when you, the supposed good guys don’t?” Neal demanded. “Well, how the mightily self-righteous have fallen! And there’s the one-sidedness, Elizabeth.”

 

“I’m not proud of that,” Peter muttered.

 

“That’s something,” Neal answered. “But the fact is, one sided. You made the rules, always made the rules, changed the rules…if I didn’t like it, well, I could always go back to prison, and you could still feel piously that you have given me that chance and I wasn’t man enough – or not a good enough man – to keep to the fantastic bargain you’d negotiated for me.”

 

“Wow!” Elizabeth whispered.

 

“Oh, Peter told me I could be a con, or a man, but not both. He’s a man, I’m not.”

 

“And I thought you loved Peter! Gosh, how can I have been so wrong!”

 

“I loved Peter,” Neal said, just a hint of misery leaking under the flatness of his tone. “I loved you. That’s why I surrendered the treasure without thought, and hurt my best friend. But I’m not an idiot, Elizabeth! My emotions…despite what Peter thought about Kate …do not cloud my analytical mental processes.”

 

“So what’s changed? What happened? And – and can it be fixed?” Elizabeth was very sad.

 

“It was a long process. How little Peter respected Mozzie. How little he respected me, come to that! And I only **_really_** got that at Steel. But the idea was there, in the back of my mind. How much I risked for Peter, and how little I counted the cost.”

 

“The deal you made with Hagen,” Peter said. He felt his heart break a little. He hadn’t realised how Neal felt. When he looked back at that awful period of his life, it all seemed fuzzy and confusing.

 

“Yes. I had tried all the ways anyone knew to find Bennett. Not that I could go far!” Neal snorted derisively. “But Mozzie did flick-flacks, burnt huge debts to find him…for me, and for you. Not that you ever asked. And the inquest was coming up, and your career was going to be thrown away….”

 

“And I asked you to do anything you could…” Elizabeth added. “Just as Peter had for me. We both asked you….”

 

“But if I’d been chucked out of the FBI, he’d have had no handler, El,” Peter pointed out. “He was helping himself, too, keeping himself out of prison.”

 

“No, I knew about the parole rulings by then. I just didn’t mention them. Kind of an instinct to keep an ace or two hidden. You forget how much of a reader I am, Mozzie is. You said, read the Warrant Law…I read the thing. You don’t think we’d have boned up on my situation? I must have been acting like an idiot for you to catch me!

          “I know it’s not a typical parole situation, but there were a group of lawyers who were ready to go to court if I was ever thrown back, because it would have been cruel and unusual punishment, my life would have been forfeit, after being an FBI snitch. If a parole officer goes to prison, all the parolees assigned to him don’t have their paroles revoked! They thought that precedent would have at **_least_** forced the Bureau to find me another handler if you were not available. After my contributions, and the times my life was endangered, they thought I might well have my sentence commuted.”

 

“So why - ?” Peter stopped.

 

“Yeah, it was more than work at that point, you’re right. I did it for my friend. But then I was juggling Hagen’s crazy demands that I couldn’t tell you about, trying to keep you happy, and you were driving me mad, telling me how the system had worked for you – because you were so upright and wonderful, was the subtext! – and then that idiot Federal Prosecutor started throwing gold coins around and you were so sure I’d had something to do with them, which I had….all to help you.

          “I had no interest in and did not benefit from acquiring the coins. Curtis Hagen had given me two days to do the job…he said you had only had a day to be saved, so I owed him, but it was so I would have to take the quickest route. And he’s smart, he knew which it would be, I didn’t have a choice, so he just recorded me and then had me over a barrel, forcing me to do one high-risk job after another, with you – **_you_** – my friend, my partner, always one step behind me because of the anklet and my proximity.

          “To help you, I’d put my head in a noose, two nooses, if you count you **_and_** bloody Hagen. Then the coins came to light, and the fence – and you lied to me and told me you had him in custody.”

 

“We had him the next day!”

 

“Yes. He was an idiot. You told me, though, before the fact. I believed you because you were so insistent **_I_** never lie to **_you._** Silly Neal! Silly, romantic, idealistic Neal thought you had principles and wanted _me_ to stick to _your_ principles. Silly, silly Neal!”

 

Neal waited for Peter to say something, but Peter sat there, looking distraught, and Elizabeth, hearing all this for the first time, looked a little desperate.

 

“And then you just went off at me,” Neal remembered, feeling his heart speed at the memory. “You yelled and came at me, and condemned me and denounced everything I stood for…oh, you had a field day! You said you were going to turn me in, that you’d rather go to prison than be free that way…and you turned and walked out.”

 

Neal had a sudden vision of Peter, that day, his words flying towards Neal like barbed darts from some hateful modified shotgun, digging into his soul.

 

“I had to talk to Elizabeth.”

 

“I know. Nice to have someone to talk to.”

 

“Why didn’t you run?” Elizabeth asked. “I’ve wondered, since. At the time I was just concerned about Peter.”

 

Neal laughed, a short, scoffing bark of laughter that made the others flinch. He decided there and then that he didn’t need Elizabeth. He didn’t need the world’s art problems. He would go and live at Steel…perhaps he and Moz could go and live in Italy for a while, France…no, Italy. Ireland? There was only an instant of time as he rearranged his life.

Then he said, “Oh, right at the time I stayed because of you, Elizabeth. Because everything I’d done, after giving up on finding my biological bastard of a father, was because you had said, basically, ‘Do anything, whatever it takes.’ I expected Peter to go home to you and for you to tell him that.”

 

“I did!” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t think it would involve stealing gold coins for a dangerous criminal! And getting yourself mixed up in a terrible situation.”

 

“And if you’d known?” Neal asked quietly, sombrely.

 

Elizabeth sat up straighter and shook her head at him, tears forming in her eyes. “I’d have told you to go ahead.”

 

“El!” Peter exclaimed.

 

“That’s the right answer, Elizabeth. That’s what I would have expected.

          “It’s been years, Peter,” Neal said. “Years ago now. How’d you think you’d have enjoyed prison, all these years? Gee, you couldn’t stand that flea-bag motel for a night…and you told me it was better than prison? Not that you had the slightest idea.”

 

“I’d have had some protection…”

 

“As a discredited agent, one in for murder, the murder of a senator? Really? There would have been no snafu’s in the paperwork, no bad guys bribing guards? No beatings, no rape?

“Why did you think I was so afraid of going back? And I was just a snitch …you were a Fed! You know nothing about the realities behind bars, Burke!…how about when the alien war happened? Think you would have been protected? Think you would have enjoyed it?

“ And how would you have felt, Peter, if one day **_your_** Kate didn’t come any more?” Neal’s voice sounded exhausted, and very sad.

 

“I’d have always come!” El cried out.

 

“Not if you were on an alien slave vessel, probably without Mozzie.”

 

They stared at Neal, both imagining ‘what if ’.

 

Neal looked away and went on without looking back at them, trying to be calm and detached, but feeling again the total despair of that night.

“I was left in June’s loft, all alone, no-one to talk to. Peter didn’t call. You didn’t call, Elizabeth. I thought you’d explain, explain properly why I had done it, why you had asked me to do it, how desperate you were, and I was, Peter, for you and your beloved career that I couldn’t understand. Any more than you could understand Kate, Peter. But I knew you would be destroyed if you were even indicted.

          “There were no calls. No El saying, ‘Peter’s really upset, he doesn’t understand why we decided to do what we did. I’ll talk to him, though, you wouldn’t have done this without me asking you to, begging you to’…there was no Peter saying, ‘El told me why you did it, I wish you hadn’t, but, but I understand now…I’m sorry I yelled at you. I understand that you did it for me, and though I’m still having a hard time of it, we need to talk, why don’t you come over? I’m not going to just make the decision about this on my own. You risked your life for me, getting involved with that bastard, Hagen!’

          “No. You just left me.

          “I didn’t sleep. About two o’clock I realised that there was going to be no phone call. I stayed dressed. Not in a good suit. I called Mozzie and gave him three huge suit-cases and two bags and a box, everything: all my art stuff, Byron’s clothes, anything **they** could get their hands on…my go-bag, my phones…poor Moz, I still don’t know how he got those anywhere without any help! I didn’t tell him exactly what had happened, I wanted him **_out_** of there! - just that our deal was probably dust on the wind and to get out of Dodge and stay away till I called – if I called!

“I told June I might be picked up, and June realised her house would be ransacked, because that’s what the good guys do. Not any different to an armed home invasion. Moz wanted me to cut and run…was there any situation where that saying was more apt! – but then they’d have **_really_** had it in for June.

          “I sat in the foyer at June’s, just waiting for the knock so I could open the door before they broke it down. Somehow it seems better if the SWAT goons come, all delighted to be about to break in, damaging things, man-handling me, if I am at least dressed, open the door to them. I fell asleep in a chair there, and June woke me with coffee and I went to work, and you still said nothing. Just treated me like dirt beneath your feet…Later you said, ’ ** _Things are going to have to change around here…’_** implying ** _‘I’ve been much too lax with you, you criminal bastard, you!_** _’”_

 

He looked back and the other two were watching him, again imagining.

 

Neal looked at Elizabeth and said, “You wanted to know about this,” he waved his hands between them, “that’s when it broke. Not that there weren’t other things, it had frayed before – Peter left me hanging about the commutation hearing, about which way he was going to go with his testimony, for weeks – I had realised that I was always going to be the outsider. Long way outsider! The wrong’un, the black sheep, always on the skids. At least with Peter.

          “When you didn’t phone that night, when I didn’t hear, that’s when I realised that whether or not you were just being loyal to Peter, I didn’t have much of a place in your life, in your heart, either, that I’d been fooling myself. We weren’t even friends! I wouldn’t have done that to almost anyone, allowing them to wait, not knowing. Not even Hagen, Fowler, Kramer…okay, **_maybe_** Keller….

          “I knew then.

          “That no matter what I did, I was just a useful tool in Peter’s tool-belt, that he’d look after me better than Rice and some others because he truly understood my worth to his career. Not to you two as a human being. But, hey. I’m a criminal, what should I expect? No reprieve from that sentence.”

 

“We took you in, you came and ate at our place, you spent some nights, I drove you to work…” Peter said, a faint hint of begging in his tone.

 

“Oh, I realised why, Peter. Because **_you_** realised. Perhaps only after you slept in that…oh, sorry, you never did, did you?…after you were supposed to sleep in that motel. You must have realised that without June’s intervention, without Byron’s suits, without the help – and love - from June and Mozzie for me to feel that I was a real person, something to stay for, I’d have left.

“That if you insisted on treating me like some sort of – wow! I was about to say **_‘dog’_ ** , but you never would have treated Satchmo that way! Imagine leaving poor Satch in that motel!– that I would just leave. That I had lived that way for years and you would never catch me again. Not alive.

          “So yes, now and then we’d have lunch and you’d pat my shoulder and guide me through the door. Sometimes I’d come over for dinner and have wine – ‘wouldn’t get **_that_ ** in prison!’ – and yes, I’ve got to give it to you, for a while there, I let myself believe in the con. It was the typical abuse pattern: hurt the victim to give yourself a chance to soothe and comfort, back and forth.

“As you know, the best cons are where you get the mark to believe just what they want to believe.”

 

“So it’s all over, nothing can be done?” El asked. “It’s all been over for years and I never even **_knew?_** ”

 

“I didn’t know, either. I always thought there was some hope,” Peter said. “I wasn’t very optimistic until he came back to New York with me. I was so happy!”

 

“Some Special Agent!” Neal sneered. “And you only have yourselves to blame…you **_would_** come in here tonight. I never wanted to tell you. But it’s poisoned things. I just wanted us to drift apart.”

 

“We’ve been working together…” El said.

 

“Yes.” Neal laughed, but it wasn’t a very happy laugh. “I went from being a tool in Peter’s belt, to being one in yours, Elizabeth! Peter lured me back and we had that dream in common. And I told you, Elizabeth, you don’t have to manage my work any more. It might be easier for both of us if we parted ways completely. Because it hurts doesn’t it, thinking there’s something, and then there isn’t. Over and over. That’s how I’ve been feeling for years.”

 

Elizabeth stared at him. “Yes. I think you’re right. We’ve got several contracts to finish up. I won’t leave you until Mozzie comes back.” Elizabeth frowned suddenly. “He – Mozzie – he climbed on the alien vessel for me. He didn’t know you’d been taken, Neal.”

 

“No, he thought I might have been, but he was only sure about you.”

 

“But that was after all that mess with Hagen and – and – why would he do that?”

 

“He respects and loves you, El,” Neal said, gently. “I never gave him details, I never told him how I felt about your lack of support, not insisting that Peter comprehend that you’d begged me. And I think you underestimate Mozzie. He really is brave and even if he’d known he probably would have jumped on. You’re another Earthling.”

 

“You didn’t say you’d begged, El,” Peter agreed. “I did think you’d asked, and he’d gone off the reservation on his own.”

 

“Hagen only contacted me after El had said something, and I may well have done it on my own, just for you, Peter,” Neal shrugged. “After all, I thought we were better friends than **_that!”_**

****

Peter shook his head. “We were friends….”

 

“You spent years trying to put me in prison, even though Elizabeth said you already had a liking for me - ”

 

“Our jobs were conflicting, Neal. It was a game, me chasing, you running…you were so bright and ingenious!”

 

“I know we were on opposite sides. And it felt like a game…but a game where you could fail a thousand times and the game continued. If I failed once…and the stakes were my freedom and potentially my life verses a promotion for you…I would lose. And I did.

          “And then, a few years later, I’m risking my freedom and my life working for someone who loathes me, wants revenge on me, to get you **_out_** of prison, to save your life, or at the very least save your career, the career that took away my freedom. It just doesn’t seem as though we were playing the same game with the same stakes, does it?”

 

“No.” Elizabeth shook her long hair, and Neal suddenly had a fierce, wild desire to take her in his arms, to kiss her. He hadn’t felt that in years. He knew she reminded him a little of Kate. He’d always put it down to that. And now, like Kate, she was going to walk away and he wouldn’t see her again. He sighed quietly.

 

“You should go,” he said to them both. “It’s all out in the open, no more cons, no more lies, no more pretending. I’ve been pretending, hoping it would become real.

“Perhaps that’s how I was with Kate, hmm, Peter? I should learn better, but I just so wanted…never mind.”

 

“We’ll need to work together for a few more weeks, perhaps months,” Elizabeth reminded him.

 

“We-ell, not really, Elizabeth. Most of the stuff we can do by phone, I’ll let you know when a painting is ready, you can come and pick it up and I won’t be around. We can make it easy.”

 

Her huge blue eyes widened, sparkled, and tears fell. Peter put his arm round her shoulders. Neal deliberately stood up and stepped round to the back of the couch, away from them **:** the couple, the enduring, exclusive couple who had broken his heart for a while.

 

Peter got up and came after him, and Neal put his hands in the deep pockets of his robe so he wouldn’t inadvertently take Peter’s hand, hug him, throw a punch at him. He honestly wasn’t sure which.

 

“Please, Neal, please – is there any way I can say sorry that would mean anything to you?”

 

Neal looked down and the blue disappeared. “So many times you could have done that. You didn’t see that it was necessary, or even just kind. So many opportunities you passed by.”

 

“I love you, Neal. Elizabeth knows it. Mozzie knows it. Steel knows it. I can try and make it up to you. For my freedom, for my life, for my wife. I’ll do anything.”

 

“Go away. Anything else will just keep ripping the scab off, for all of us, Peter.”

 

“You seldom said my name like that,” Peter said, sadly, backing away. “It was always ‘Peeter’.” He took a deep breath. “I wish we’d had this conversation when I found out about the coins. I wish I’d taken you home with me and we’d all sat down and worked out what to do as partners, the three of us.”

 

“That would have been nice,” Neal said, his emotions under tight control again. “And I am glad you can see my side of things, a little. But I'll never know when you won’t, again.”

 

“Too late now,” Peter said, and suddenly, and rather to Neal’s alarm, he looked horribly old. Peter held out his hand and said, “Thank you, Neal, for everything, even for those things I didn’t know about.”

 

Neal shook his hand briefly, and Peter turned away and went back to Elizabeth, who stood up.

 

Elizabeth whispered, “I don’t know how to say good-bye to you, Neal, you’ve been part of our lives for years, like a son, a brother, a lover.”

 

“Elizabeth, no, I haven’t.” Neal held himself back. His feelings for Elizabeth and Peter had been so deep and so intimate for so long, and even though now all that was shattered, it was so **_hard_** not to remember how it felt to love them, to desperately want them just to hold him and treat him as an equal. That marrow-deep human need for physical touch!

He knew that if he ran towards them right now, they’d do that. For a while. But how real it was, how that would hold up under pressure…?...it hadn’t, before.

 

Neal took another step back. He sought another alias to protect him, but the only one that he knew would work was David Tanner, and he was dangerous, cold, heartless. He **_daren’t_** channel David when the anger he felt over their betrayals all that time ago now was so frighteningly fresh in his heart and mind. He shuddered and blinked and centred himself. Neal. Caffrey. Ellington. Steel. Letting each name and whom they represented wash over him.

 

Elizabeth said, her voice breaking, “I don’t want it to be over. There must be some way of fixing this! Let’s just hug each other and make up, start again. Please, Neal!”

 

“Don’t think that’s a good idea, El,” Neal answered, and cursed himself silently for using her pet name. Mrs Burke. Mrs Suit. **_I wish I’d never met either of you!_**

“Go, Elizabeth. - You were my nemesis, you know.”

 

“What?” Elizabeth asked, confused.

 

“Not Peter. He caught me, you kept me here with him. You see, I thought it meant…I thought the fact that my girl left me, that my beautiful, bright, fantastic, loving, sexy blue-eyed brunette had left me and then when, against all odds we’d touched again she had been blown to smithereens…yet Peter’s beautiful, bright, fantastic, loving, sexy blue-eyed brunette loved him to distraction and was loyal and stayed with him and they built a home and a life together…I thought that was a sign – from God, Heaven, the Universe, Fate, Destiny …whoever.

“I thought it meant – perhaps it does – that Peter’s the good, worthy guy and I’m bad and worthless, and because of that I would never have anyone. I sincerely tried to change because of that, but nothing came of it. My loving relationships have been cursed and Peter has said openly that it’s because of who I am.”

 

Elizabeth cried, “Neal, **_no!”,_** broke away from Peter and scrambled round the couch towards him. He put his hands up, warding her off, and backed up rapidly, knocking over a small table with a photograph on it – a photograph of Neal and Peter.

 

The glass smashed.

 

Elizabeth stared down at it, shocked, and Neal repeated, “Look, please just go. After all we went through together, it’s too much. I need some time. Lots of time.”

 

“Come, Hon,” Peter said, and led her away.

He turned back as they got to the door and said, “Good-bye, Neal.”

 

 

 

The End....?

 

Please let me know if any of you felt like this about their relationship by end of S5. I just had to write it out!

 


End file.
